


in every time

by Thegoldenfnch (I_write_fanfiction_sometimes)



Category: The Goldfinch (2019), The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt
Genre: Abstract rambling, Alternate Realities, I get too existential about soulmates and what it means to love someone, M/M, Meeting in a thousand different ways, Reincarnation, Soulmates, The constants in a life that is different from the reality we know, after a fashion
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-26
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:54:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22415836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_write_fanfiction_sometimes/pseuds/Thegoldenfnch
Summary: They have met a thousand different ways, in every time, place, or reality imaginable. The universe has felt it every time. Somethings shifts when their eyes meet, when the moment of recognition happens. Sometimes it’s just in passing; all they get is a moment of eye contact in a crowd or a handshake in a busy room. Sometimes they get whole lives. But no matter what, the universe always knows.‘They’ve met‘it says‘they met and they have a chance‘
Relationships: Theodore Decker/Boris Pavlikovsky
Comments: 10
Kudos: 59





	1. To see

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve finally lost my mind and gone feral. This whole project may be me dealing with my feelings in a roundabout way but hopefully (!) you get an enjoyable story out of it.  
> I have a lot of thoughts about people you would meet and love in any reality and sometimes you’ve gotta just run with the insane ideas as they come.  
> That being said, each chapter of this will be a different ‘reality’. I don’t know if there will be an actual end or not but we’re here to have a good time!

They have met a thousand different ways, in every time, place, or reality imaginable. The universe has felt it every time. Somethings shifts when their eyes meet, when the moment of recognition happens. Sometimes it’s just in passing; all they get is a moment of eye contact in a crowd or a handshake in a busy room. Sometimes they get whole lives. But no matter what, the universe always knows. _‘They’ve met‘_ it says _‘they met and they have a chance‘_

The first time the universe feels the tiny click into alignment it doesn’t realize what’s happened. It’s really such a tiny thing; a little slide into place and two bodies that glow brighter than the rest.

The first time it’s a shared laugh in the classroom. Just a secret grin between two boys who have no idea what they’ve set into motion.

The second is years earlier, chronologically speaking. A man dressed head to toe in black blows out a cloud of cigarette smoke and grins across the bar, a dare hidden in the corner of his mouth.

Somewhere, in a parallel universe, the one with glasses grins back and takes a slow drink instead of looking away.

The universe doesn’t know why it happens, there’s never anything terribly wonderful or extraordinary about their story, but there’s so much life in them that it’s supposedly only fair they get so many chances to share it with each other.

And so it happens, over and over, until the ripples turn into waves and the tiny breath of their existence becomes the roaring wind that blows the tapestry of time and space. Until, really, the whole of everything you can comprehend is them. Boris and Theo: the boy whose heart was a painting, and the one who stole it. 


	2. The stories that we tell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is all selfish writing leave me alone

Contrary to popular belief, the universe does not have a plan. It doesn’t even have very much control over the worlds it oversees. It just exists to watch, to record, to see the patterns, and, if the time comes, to nudge people down a certain path. It did not bring them together. 

In fact, the first time the spark hits it shudders. Here was something it had not predicted, here was something it could not change. After that first meeting of souls, the universe felt the echos from the end to the very beginning and reaching out in every direction. No time or universe was not lit up with their lives. 

The way time moves is confusing and nearly unexplainable. It moves faster in some places and never makes sense; just when you think you’ve figured it out, it changes. Nothing is set in stone. For example, while that burst of recognition was the first time those souls had met, it was not the first time in our history. In fact, the earliest time they met in any universe was some billion years ago, as well as these things can be explained. 

The universe doesn’t find this meeting until the original lives are finished and it lights up with startling brilliance. It’s an alternate reality -which is different from a parallel universe because some fundamental rule of life has changed. In this one, the world started with raw elements. Every person has some of them inside them, even if the origin of their perpetual warmth or the way they always know where the closest water is will eventually be forgotten. 

Boris is air in this lifetime. He can blow leaves from the trees and stir the world to storm. Theo is water, and their meeting is a legend. People talk for years later of the way the rain had poured for weeks. They’re nearly gods, and their story does not begin a happy one. 

Boris comes into Theo’s life kicking and screaming. He rips the glasses off his face and shoves him over with winds so strong nothing could stand in their way. Theo laughs, because in this time he is known as The Man Who Sunk a Thousand Ships and even laying flat on his back he could crush this sailor with a thought. He brings the water in, but Boris doesn’t die. He slows the liquid in Boris’ blood and he chokes around the air that won’t leave his lungs. He calls a storm, and Boris whips it into a fury. Their ships sink around then, but at this point they aren’t fighting for the reward or for freedom. It’s wild, because at this point in time almost everything is, and they’re full of more of the ancients then most people are these days. This meeting is probably the most earth-shaking, and it leaves sparks shooting through the web of the universe. 

They both stand in the centre of the storm. Boris appearing to hover over the waves and Theo with two feet firm on the water, Boris is laughing. Neither can touch the other without an equal amount of injury being rained on themselves. The universe watches this with curiosity. It hasn’t seen anything like this in what feels like forever. 

There’s a kind of glee in both their eyes and when they’re both too tired to continue it’s almost happiness. 

Theo speaks first.

“Will you work with me?” 

The universe holds it’s breath.

“You have taken everything that was mine, why would I?”

The universe can feel Theo’s delight; finally, someone to match him. (This is them in any world- equals)

“I could give you more.”

Boris steps forward, the water rippling under his feet with the air that moves to support him. 

“Perhaps you can.”

(Boris is always the one who’s ready to give it all up for Theo)

The legends they create are told for hundreds of years after they die in this timeline, and the stories are still being whispered in the dark when their souls return.

Many things that are remembered are false, and what is true is usually laughed at because it seems to magical, but the one truth that is never forgotten is that they are always there for each other. There is very little pain between them this time around. 

It’s one of their happier lives. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thoughts?  
> tumblr post: [x](https://thegoldenfnch.tumblr.com/post/190527364452/in-every-time-p2)


	3. The choices we make

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you were wondering or didn't pick it up, canon is their 'first' meeting.  
> This is again, self indulgent and basically me writing a hundred different AUs without actually having to write them.  
> anyway! hope you enjoy!

It’s their thirty-third life and they’re in Vegas. Theo was there before Boris this time, brought with his dad when he first left. The day Boris appears in class Theo sneers. Here is an unwashed, ghostly-pale, and miserable boy that laughed at Amelia’s perfectly fine greeting. 

They meet eyes, Theo with disdain, and Boris grinning like Theo’s made his day. 

They find themselves forced together on the bus home, or, at least, Boris sits down beside Theo and traps him by the window. Surprisingly, the boy doesn’t smell like anything but dust and a hint of oranges. Maybe some cigarette smoke if Theo really focused, which he didn’t.

“Those glasses, eh, Potter?” Boris cackles, flicking Theo’s glasses. 

It doesn’t endear him to Theo.

“Fuck off,” he mutters. 

“You do not like me much,” Boris says, seeming strangely happy about it, “is because of my father?”

Theo looks sharply at him, wondering it Boris’ dad had cheated his out of a win or something.   
“No. Why would you think that?” He asks, hating that he’s even humouring this strange boy.

“Ah, thought not.”

“You didn’t answer the question.”

“I’m Boris. Pavlikovsky,” he finishes after a long pause. 

“What? You famous or something?” Theo asks, exasperatedly. 

Boris laughs.    
“Not in any good way! People hate us! We come and wreck their land, steal jobs.” 

He smacks Theo’s arm.

“Want to see my house?” he asks suddenly. 

Theo laughs, and it’s mean.

“Why would I want to do that?”

Boris doesn’t even flinch. Theo can almost admire that. 

“You do not seem to have many friends, Harry Potter,” Boris replies.

“My name is Theo. And I have a fine number of friends,” he mutters. 

“Ah, like Potter better.” 

Theo goes to his house. 

The universe watches a grudging friendship bloom (on Theo’s end). It’s not an instantaneous connection like it was before, but it builds in a way no life has. Every time Theo gives in a little more he causes a little jolt in the web, like a clock gear that’s a little rusty. Boris is right there from the beginning, forcing his way into Theo’s heart and life with grim determination. 

It’s hard this time. Harder then it was the first time, in a similar life. Neither of them escape their fathers in two years, or even four. They make plans without saying why; the unspoken, unrecognized truths of their nights with only the moon to know their secrets. They leave the summer they’re 18 to spend a week in Los Angeles. It’s blisteringly hot and the city is a little hazy, but it’s one of the weeks Theo will remember as the best of his life. It’s hard for him to look at this boy, the one with a blinding smile on his face and hair sticking to his still-pale forehead with sweat, and remember his initial annoyance. He can’t imagine having grown up without Boris poking his side when he tries to study. 

They’re a little less broken in certain ways this time, Theo slightly less prone to self-destructive behaviour, and Boris finding less joy in being out of his mind when there was no one to share it with. That’s not to say they’re okay. Neither of the people they grew up with were conducive to being okay. Boris wakes up some days and nearly punches Theo in the face for leaning over him, and he sometimes gets in moods where the only thing he’ll do is sit in the dark bedroom and drink.  _ ‘Just thinking, Potter,’ _ he’ll say when Theo tries to enter. 

Theo occasionally flinches at yelling, and Boris has to be careful when he argues because Theo will just shut down. Some days he’ll sit in the tub and stare at his hands until Boris gets in with him and silently wraps their fingers together. 

They both doubt each other and themselves frequently, wondering if they made the right choice leaving together. If it’s okay that they’re together in all the ways they are. Sometimes if it’s bad enough Theo finds himself on the phone with his father just so he can hurt more. Sometimes Theo doesn’t freeze up and they shout themselves out of their home. Those are the days when Boris gets high and cocoons himself in a hotel room and Theo shakes himself into a suicidal heap on their bedroom floor. 

They aren’t perfect, they aren’t even good for each other in some ways, but this is the way they’re happy. The mornings Theo wakes up to Boris singing in a language he doesn’t understand and the nights Boris gets to wrap himself around Theo without being ready to spring away at a noise makes everything worth it. The yelling and the bad days, the nights they can’t say how they feel because years of hiding are hard to shake off, and the mornings when they wake up screaming, it’s all worth it. For the spark they  _ almost  _ feel every time they brush against each other. For living without fear. 

This life, they’re soulmates by choice. Boris decided he chose Theo, and eventually, Theo chooses him back. They leave hundreds of glittering threads in the universe every time they choose to stay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thots? ily!!  
> Tumblr post:[x](https://thegoldenfnch.tumblr.com/post/190785484342/in-every-time-p3)  
> Main blog:[x](https://iwritefanfictionsometimes.tumblr.com/)  
> Goldfinch blog: [x](https://thegoldenfnch.tumblr.com/)


	4. to live and be Loved

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> blah blah blah self-fulfilment blah blah  
> leave a comment if you go as insane over alternate universes as I do

They’re in a different timeline, and Theo stays in New York. Larry never comes for him. The Barbours take him in and he’s as happy as he could be, but the school counsellor makes them take him to therapy after he falls asleep in class every day for two weeks in a row. 

It’s painful for the universe to see the empty space next to him, the place Boris should have already stood. That’s fixed a month later when the therapist suggests a pen pal. Someone for Theo to talk to. She says it might be easier for him to connect with someone outside of his past. Naturally, Theo hates the idea, but it’s set up anyway. 

And there’s the spark. 

_Hello Theo-,_

Boris is just as reluctant as Theo, which seems to help, and originally his letters have a hint of derision to them, like he can’t believe this private school kid could have any problems significant enough to warrant extensive therapy. 

Then Theo calls him an asshole and sends a newspaper clip with the coverage of the explosion. It’s not hard for him to put together the pieces. 

Boris quickly finds himself attached. It’s hard not to be, there’s a kinship with this boy that he doesn’t feel with any of the boring, dusty children of Vegas. 

Eventually, they talk on the phone. 

Boris finds himself whispering forbidden thoughts into the darkness. Things like, _‘would you take me away?’_ and, _‘would you come to California with me?’_

Theo always laughed and never responded. In fact, Theo never seemed to really say anything about his future, and if Boris asked Theo always had to go. 

It all comes to head the night of Theo’s sixteenth birthday. 

Theo is drunk, or high, or maybe both, when he calls. Boris laughs at his slurred greeting. 

“Hello, Theo,” he says (there are no references to Harry Potter in this life). 

A hum from the other side of the phone. 

Now, to understand the differences of this Theo, you have to know his past as the universe did. This was not Theodore Decker, a man looking for his mother in everyone, and this was not Theo, the boy who grew up with no one who loved him. This was Theo Barbour-Decker, who grew up with a brother and a family that loved him in a certain way, and who had a gay man he spent maybe evenings with. This Theo was still afraid, but he was not stupid. He knew who he was. 

This Theo took a deep breath and whispered quietly to his best friend: “I have something to tell you.” 

And this Boris held his breath and said: ”what is it?”

And Theo says, “I think I like you. As not a friend.”

And Boris doesn’t reply. 

There’s a broken thread in that world’s tapestry for many years after that conversation, cut short by Boris laughing and saying _‘no’._ He hung up when the silence became too telling. They don’t speak for many years. 

This Theo, the one who jumps first, doesn’t come around in many worlds or times. He’s a rare combination of love and therapy that Theo doesn’t get in worlds with his dad or his mom. The worlds where he isn’t Theo would deny that his mom was anything but perfect, but she had things she’d never say. Like that she would love Theo whoever he was. Or that the two men holding hands were right and okay. Theo with Hobie and Theo with therapy can recognize his mother wasn’t always right. That she was wrong for not accepting things he couldn’t change. Or at least, for not telling him she would accept him. 

But this Theo almost always loses Boris. 

Sometimes for a few days, and once, for the rest of his life. 

He gets him back in this one, a man on the street calls his name as he is about to go into the Barbour apartments and when he turns there’s a dark-haired, grinning, eggshell-pale Boris staring up at him. He doesn’t know how exactly he knows, but he thinks he would recognize Boris even if the pronunciation of his name wasn’t so distinctive. 

He’s wary at first, for months really, but Boris explains himself (and his father, and the place he’d grown up) and really, Theo’d never stopped missing him and his loud voice. 

It takes time, and so much talking. Theo makes Boris go to therapy, Boris makes Theo hundreds of apologies. But they get there, eventually. 

The universe breathes a sigh of relief when the cut thread ties itself back together. If it had favourites, that life would be near the top, because they both heal. They’re both okay, with time. And they don’t take their anger out on each other. All of the good things about the times before and after are multiplied here with communication and Theo’s family. 

When they die, they are happy and together, which is two things more than they’d ever hoped for. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Link text](url)
> 
> Main blog:[x](https://iwritefanfictionsometimes.tumblr.com/)  
> Goldfinch blog: [x](https://thegoldenfnch.tumblr.com/)  
> Tumblr post: [x](https://thegoldenfnch.tumblr.com/post/190881677652/in-every-time-p4)


	5. in the quiet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do what I want! hopefully you enjoy some of my ongoing crusade to Let Boreo Be Soft 2020!

In one universe, a strange collection of events lead to Boris’ father living in New York for a short time when Boris is 10. He eventually leaves, but Boris never does. He goes to a private boarding school only a couple of blocks away from Theo’s school and sees his father twice in the next three years. They’re both thirteen when they meet, a couple months before what would’ve been the fateful day at the museum. Boris makes a habit of sneaking out of the school when he can, wandering around New York with a couple of stolen dollars and a pack of cigarettes he paid the seniors to buy for him. No one looks twice at him, he’s tall and he has what adults like to call ‘old eyes’, so even if they do look closer, no one sees a thirteen year old. 

Today he’s snuck onto the school playground and is hanging upsidedown on the monkey bars, his coat crumpled on the ground in a sad heap a few feet away. Theo is the only kid to approach him; the rest are playing at being old and mature, without time to mess around on children’s equipment. 

“You don’t belong here,” he says to the upsidedown boy. 

Boris grins.

“Says who?”

“You don’t go to school here,” Theo grumbles and pouts. 

He wouldn’t call it pouting, but he’s thirteen and tiny so Boris decides that’s what it is. 

“Are you gonna tell on me?” he asks, half joking and half serious. 

A strange whirl of emotions pass over the small boy’s face before he shakes his head. 

“You look more interesting than Tom,” he says finally, with the bluntness only children can get away with. 

“Who’s Tom?” Boris asks, twisting so that he’s half sideways and he doesn’t feel quite so light-headed. 

“My best friend.”

Another grin. 

“You’re gonna like me better.”

And Theo does. They spend as much time as they can together outside of school, Boris sneaking out and meeting Theo all over the city. The best part is that Theo’s mom seems to like him, if in a grudging and bemused way. Sometimes Boris sneaks into the playground, but he gets caught once and it becomes harder after that. 

It goes on like this for a month or two before Tom and Theo get caught in the bathroom. 

“I can’t believe he’d just sell me out like that,” Theo rants into the phone. 

On the other end, Boris makes a humming noise and then there’s a muffled crash before someone yells some rude words. Boris laughs and shouts something unintelligible back before he answers. 

“I told you he was a dick.”

(This was a long-debated and tired argument between them; Boris said Tom was a dick and Theo didn’t need someone who would just drop him when he stopped going along with his ‘stupid plans, seriously, Theo’ and Theo said ‘I need someone to talk to other than you, you don’t even go to school here?’) 

Theo frowns and rolls his eyes. Boris laughs again, like he can see him. 

“I’ll kick his ass if you want me to?” He offers, and underneath his joking tone, there’s a hint of seriousness. 

Theo chuckles and takes a deep breath.

“I know you would.”

His mom knocks on his door. 

“I’ve gotta go, they’ve called us in for a meeting,” he says quickly. 

“Tell your mom I’m coming over tonight, you’d better be home.”

“I don’t know-”

“Potter, I’m serious, make it quick.”

Theo sighs, there’s really no talking Boris out of anything. 

“Okay. Bye.”

There’s only the click of Boris hanging up. Months of phone calls and he still hasn’t learned to say goodbye. Not that he did in person either. Theo sighs and opens the door to his room. 

“Come on, Honey! We’ll be late!” his mom calls from the front entrance. 

They watch the coverage of the explosion in their living room that night, Theo and Boris sprawled on the floor and his mom curled up in the corner of the sofa. 

None of them speak for the entire time they sit there. 

The years go on, Theo and Boris grow up and then go to university, Theo for English and Boris for Communications. 

(‘Surely I can put the four languages I kind of know to good use.’)

They stumble along the edge of something for many years, neither brave enough to change their friendship into something different. It comes to head one night of their second year of uni, both of them slightly high and giggly. 

“Theo,” Boris says suddenly, his laughter stopping abruptly. 

Theo looks at him. The room is dark, neither of them bothered to turn on a light, and his glasses are somewhere across the room, maybe on a table… 

“Yeah?” he mumbles, feeling the weight of his tongue in his mouth. 

“There’s something I need to tell you.”

Boris’ smudged face comes closer. Theo reaches up to tug at a curl just to make him frown. There’s a hissed breath on his face and then Boris’ hand on his cheek. It feels right. 

“Can I kiss you?” 

The words are quiet, tentative. Theo feels himself lean into the fingers brushing his ear. It’s surprising how not surprising it is. Theo feels like he’s been waiting for this for a long time. He’s not sure when exactly his thoughts shifted from fear to acceptance, but he knows that now, he wouldn’t turn Boris down. 

“Yeah.” 

So he does. 

Unlike many times, this first kiss is soft and not desperate in any way. Both their lips are a little dry, and the carpet is itchy against Theo’s neck, but Boris cups his face like it’s precious, and Theo lets his eyes close and his hands curl into Boris’ t-shirt. 

Something settles that night, like the last piece from a puzzle you’ve been trying to finish for weeks. Their touches become easier, neither of them worried about being too close with the other. They’re private about it because they’ve always been private, just the two of them against the world, but sometimes Boris wraps his arm around Theo’s shoulders and buries his face in his hair, or Theo lets himself wrap his fingers around Boris’ wrist like he wants to, and, all in all, they are happy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, find me in these places:  
> Main blog:[x](https://iwritefanfictionsometimes.tumblr.com/)  
> Goldfinch blog: [x](https://thegoldenfnch.tumblr.com/)  
> Tumblr post: [x](https://thegoldenfnch.tumblr.com/post/617679755545837568/how-about-ill-kick-his-ass-if-you-want-me-to)

**Author's Note:**

> I blame Mel entirely for this  
> Main blog:[x](https://iwritefanfictionsometimes.tumblr.com/)  
> Goldfinch blog: [x](https://thegoldenfnch.tumblr.com/)  
> Fic post: [x](https://thegoldenfnch.tumblr.com/post/190472993557/in-every-time-p1)


End file.
